Southern political personalities like sweet corn travel badly. They lose flavor with every hundred yards away from the patch. By the time they reach New York they are like Golden Bantam that has been trucked up from Texas - stale and unprofitable. The consumer forgets that the corn tastes different where it grows.
Often the magical elements in my books are standing in for elements of the real world the small and magical-in-their-own-right sorts of things that we take for granted and no longer pay attention to like the bonds of friendship that entwine our own lives with those of other people and places.